1. THESE four applications were taken up for hearing together, as they all raise common question of law and fact.

2. THE petitioners in all these cases are employees of the different establishments impleaded as respondents in the different writ applications. In or about the year 1965, with the financial assistance of the government of India, the Housing Department, Government of West Bengal, constructed about 1600 flats of different sizes under the subsidised Industrial Housing Scheme. According to the petitioners, these flats were public premises within the meaning of Section 3 of the West Bengal Government Premises (Regulation of Occupancy) Act, 1984.

3. IN order to utilise the flats so constructed, the State Government entered into Agreements with different industrial establishments to identify the workers to whom the flats could be allotted. In the recitals of the said agreements it was mentioned as follows :-

"whereas the Government of West Bengal (hereinafter referred to as "the Government") have constructed the tenements hereinafter mentioned and described in the Schedule herein under written (hereinafter called "the said tenements") under the "subsidised Housing sche